Tag Archives: london
Families pay almost £44,000 extra for home in good primary school area
Families in the UK are having to pay a price premium of almost £44,000 to buy a property near the best performing primary schools, new research has found. Many parents want their offspring to get the best start in life and they are prepared to move home to make sure they are in the catchment area for those first crucial years at school. According to the research by online estate agents HouseSimple, the average premium paid is £43,773 to be in the catchment areas for the top 50 state funded primary schools across England that received the highest rating by Ofsted in its latest report. The research revealed that average property prices in streets that are close to these best schools are 18% higher than average property prices for the area postcode. Of the primary schools commanding the biggest premiums to live near to, more than half are in the South of England. The schools adding the biggest premium to local property prices are St Luke’s Primary School in Brighton and Hove and Crowland Primary School in Haringey, adding 45% or £151,121 and 44% or £193,816 respectively. But according to HouseSimple figures, there are some areas offering better value to live close to outstanding schools. Properties surrounding The Mayflower Primary School in Essex, Henry Cavendish Primary School in Lambeth and Highfields Primary School in Leicester have recently sold without buyers having to pay a hefty premium. ‘Many parents will go to great lengths to get their children a place at the best local state funded primary school. But there is a price to pay for the best free schooling,’ said the firm’s chief executive officer Alex Gosling. ‘Private education is out of reach for many families, which is why there is high demand for places at top rated state primary schools. But there aren’t enough places to go around, which has led property prices in the catchment areas of popular primary schools to rocket in recent years,’ he explained. ‘Attending an outstanding state school can offer an education as good as, if not better, than paying to go private, but with property prices close to the best state schools commanding average premiums of 18%, paying the price to live close by certainly doesn’t equate to a free education,’ he added. Continue reading
Property growth sluggish in the US, latest index data suggests
National property growth in the United States increased by a moderate 0.6% quarter on quarter but values are barely rising with variations according to location. The home data index from Clear Capital shows that in the Northeast and Midwest regional quarterly growth rates were sluggish at only 0.2% while the South saw a 0.7% rise. These rates come with little to no change from the previously reported quarterly growth rates, all within 0.1% of the figures from the previous month. The firm believes that the current picture is being led by the West where sales have increased 0.3% from 0.9% to 1.2% in a month and it says that this momentum shift is setting the pattern for another strong summer growth season as the region begins to dominate regional performance once again. The continued dominance of the West is easy to see on the firm’s list of Highest Performing Major Metro Markets, where nine of the current top 15 are in the West. Seattle continues to lead the nation with 2% growth over the last quarter, an increase of 0.2% since the previous index, while quarterly growth in Sacramento increased 0.3% to 1.5% quarter on quarter and the rest of the Western top markets all reported at least 1.2% growth over the last quarter. However, the condition of each individual market in the region is varied. Portland, San Jose, and Denver have all surpassed their previous peak market values from before the crash, with Seattle fast approaching its own benchmark. However, homes in Las Vegas are fetching just over half of peak market values from 10 years ago. The index report also points out that the current distressed property saturation rates in cities like Sacramento and San Diego have improved by 50% or more, illustrating a drastic improvement in the overall health of the market, and yet both markets have quite a way to go to recovering all market value lost during the crash. ‘Real estate market headlines have repeatedly documented the strong, potentially bubble like recovery of the West over the past couple years, and this continued trend of performance doesn’t appear to be going away just yet,’ said Alex Villacorta, vice president for research and analytics at Clear Capital. ‘However, it’s important to remember just how varied the standing of each of these Western metro’s recoveries remains. While the West as a whole has seen incredible performance since the lows of 2011, comparisons between individual markets like Denver and Las Vegas can be a sobering reminder of the devastating effects of the crash and that some markets still have a long way to go in terms of regaining lost value,’ he explained. ‘Conversely, those markets that are reaching new market highs are worth keeping a close eye on since the speed at which those recoveries have occurred is clearly unsustainable in the long term,’ he added. Continue reading
UK house prices crept up in May but annual growth slowed, says latest index
House prices in the UK edged up 0.2% in May but annual growth slowed to 4.7% to an average of £204,368, according to the latest index to be published. The annual pace of house price growth remains in the fairly narrow range between 3% and 5% that has been prevailing for much of the past 12 months, according to the date from the Nationwide, one of the leading home lenders in the UK. ‘In the near term, it’s going to be difficult to gauge the underlying strength of activity in the housing market due to the volatility generated by the stamp duty changes which took effect from 01 April,’ said Robert Gardner, Nationwide’s chief economist. ‘Indeed, the number of residential property transactions surged to an all-time high in March, some 11% higher than the pre-crisis peak as buyers of second homes sought to avoid the additional tax liabilities,’ he pointed out. ‘While cash purchases accounted for a significant proportion of the increase in activity it is not possible to determine whether or not these were purchased by landlords. Mortgage data suggests that, while buy to let purchases were a major driver of the increase, the purchase of second homes also accounted for a substantial proportion,’ he explained. The report also shows that the number of home mover mortgages, which is where second home purchases with a mortgage would show up, increased sharply in March. Gardner said that house purchase activity is likely to fall in the months ahead given the number of purchasers that brought forward transactions. ‘The recovery thereafter may also be fairly gradual, especially in the buy to let sector, where other policy changes, such as the reduction in tax relief for landlords from 2017, are likely to exert an ongoing drag,’ he added. But he also pointed out that healthy labour market conditions and low borrowing costs are expected to underpin a steady increase in housing market activity once stamp duty related volatility has passed, providing the economic recovery remains on track. ‘However, it is possible that the recent pattern of strong employment growth, rising real earnings, low borrowing costs and constrained supply will tilt the demand/supply balance in favour of sellers and exert upward pressure on price growth once again in the quarters ahead,’ he said. He added that according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), the number of properties on estate agents’ books was already close to all-time lows on data extending back to the late 1970s. According to Matt Andrews, managing director of Bluestone Mortgages, consumer confidence is still rising, so with more people looking to secure lending it is important to see some innovation come into the sector to help more people get onto the housing ladder. ‘In order to help those who currently struggle to gain access to lending, such as people who have experienced a genuine blip on their credit scores, or who only have limited trading histories, we need to offer a more… Continue reading
